Fighting hipsters with hipsters: the new GOP strategy?

posted at 6:41 pm on March 18, 2014 by Kevin Glass

The Republican National Committee is out with a new series of web ads that star people of a variety of different demographics designed to appeal to different segments of the American population that they’ve recently struggled to win: minorities, women, and, yes, hipsters.

The ad campaign, entitled “Create Your American Dream,” features a spotlight on Scott Greenberg, a bespactacled young man that National Journal’s Lucia Graves accuses of that deadly word that doesn’t really mean anything: “hipster.”

Take a look:

The ads are a part of a six-figure campaign that will run in 14 different states and, as far as the actual issues go, will focus on energy, entrepreneurialism, family budgeting and other issues that appeal to middle-class Americans. Obviously, the GOP has been discussing “outreach” ever since President Obama’s sweeping victory in 2012, and these ads focus on the demographics that the party has recently struggled with electorally. A six-figure ad buy is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but if well-received, the ads might be a preview of what the party apparatus will steer ads toward in the future.

It could be worse, right? After all:

Well, maybe. View the thirty-second ad that serves to highlight all of the stories the RNC wants to highlight below – :

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

This doesn’t answer your question, but by way of free association, this one of RWM’s I thought was vaguely hypnotic when I saw it. And there are several hipsters at the end. I don’t know what they are, but they appear to be the results of Yuppies mating with Hippies.

Meh. Not too bad as an ad campaign I suppose. They should probably do it. But it could use some polishing in my opinion. I probably skew a bit younger than some of the posters here, and most of you, if you saw me on the street would never imagine that I was an evil right winger. I have tattoos, I’m into culture, music, etc. (Some of you might even think that I was a ‘hipster’ — gasp!)

I’d have made this a bit differently though. Believe it or not, there are a lot of younger, culturally contemporary mutants out here that are actually very Conservative on a lot of levels. Militantly so. They should have just let me take video of people I hang out with in bars. I could have made a way better commercial.

The focus has to be on anti-fascism. That’s something to which all humans can relate. And ‘Liberalism’ IS fascism. The anti-abortion point is also a big draw. And everyone hates the IRS.

Was walking around downtown Seattle a fair bit last week. Hadn’t been there in a while. So many hipsters… It was kind of sad really. Orange pants and tennis shoes and a big fuzzy scarf? Yeah, buddy, that works. You bet.

Get a black woman from DC to tell the story of how her child was doing better in the voucher program, going to a school that they chose. Then Barack Obama answered the call of the teachers’ unions and the voucher program was cancelled and her kid is back in that school from h*ll. She thought she could trust him but the Democrats are more interested in the union’s money than than they are in education for America’s kids. Close with: “I’m voting Republican because I think my son deserves to go to a good school, just like the president’s kids do.”

The mistake was mentioning Republican. That makes it too partisan. And the label Republican is not going to cut any ice with the hipster market they are targeting. If you can explain why certain policies are bad, you don’t need to put a label on it. If instead of saying he was a Republican, and just told the viewer why regulations may hurt employment, that would have been enough. Then let the viewer get the idea that these concepts are not the product of some Kock brother plot, but rather a basic truth of life.

When he said, “That’s why I’m a republican”, you could just hear the collective groan from the very audience targeted.

I’d have made this a bit differently though. Believe it or not, there are a lot of younger, culturally contemporary mutants out here that are actually very Conservative on a lot of levels. Militantly so. They should have just let me take video of people I hang out with in bars. I could have made a way better commercial.

The focus has to be on anti-fascism. That’s something to which all humans can relate. And ‘Liberalism’ IS fascism. The anti-abortion point is also a big draw. And everyone hates the IRS.

Is it possible to have hipster Republicans, or are they just really Libertarians?

Dongemaharu on March 18, 2014 at 7:07 PM

This is a key question. I don’t personally go around calling myself a Republican. To me, the party has reduced itself to irrelevancy. I don’t go around (much) calling myself a Conservative either. This is why I used ‘evil right winger,’ to describe myself since that’s what so many end up calling me anyway. It saves time.

Suppose we were to rephrase your question as: “Is it possible to have hipster evil right wingers, or are they just really Libertarians?”

I’d have made this a bit differently though. Believe it or not, there are a lot of younger, culturally contemporary mutants out here that are actually very Conservative on a lot of levels. Militantly so. They should have just let me take video of people I hang out with in bars. I could have made a way better commercial.

The focus has to be on anti-fascism. That’s something to which all humans can relate. And ‘Liberalism’ IS fascism. The anti-abortion point is also a big draw. And everyone hates the IRS.

WhatSlushfund on March 18, 2014 at 7:04 PM

I appreciate your perspective, WhatSlushfund!

If you do make a video commercial, please let us know where we can view it on YouTube.

The more us older folks understand about younger generations and can visualize who the unexpected conservatives may be, the better!

Jeez..can the party not find one straight sounding hipster for a commercial? If I were a hipster, I’d be pissed off that Republicans seem to think all hipsters are gay..er, not that there’s anything wrong with that..(Seinfeld) lol

When he said, “That’s why I’m a republican”, you could just hear the collective groan from the very audience targeted.

HugoDrax on March 18, 2014 at 7:18 PM

You know I was trying to put my finger on why I didn’t think much of the ads and I think this is it. Its smacks of trying to push the minority/Hipster forward as a defensive move rather than make any point of substance.

When he said, “That’s why I’m a republican”, you could just hear the collective groan from the very audience targeted.

HugoDrax on March 18, 2014 at 7:18 PM

But, that’s how you do it. You repeat it. You get the groan because what it means to be a Republican has been defined by the other guy — who’s put the blue suit up 10,000 times. You run this and run this and run this.

Now, while it may be true that hipsters pump gas and drive cars just like everyone else, they are ashamed of this fact, and try to pretend they don’t have any carbon footprint at all. And they also know that anyone truly in touch with hipster culture is aware of this shame, and will therefore conspire to hide the hipsters’ “dirty laundry” as it were — the fact that they take advantage of the lush lifestyle created by capitalism.

So, any hipster seeing this ad will instantly know that the person who created the ad is an outsider, not a real hipster — because only an outsider would make the blunder of showing a hipster doing something that he’s embarrassed by.

And the hipsters watching this ad will therefore dismiss it as the creation of an outsider trying to manipulate them. And the ad thus will not reach the hipster subconscious, and thus will be largely ineffective.

You get the groan because what it means to be a Republican has been defined by the other guy

I think the Republican brand has done the damage to itself. Tying good ideas to a particular party – in the case the GOP – is unwise. You just end up contaminating the message, rather than the message burnishing the party.

I could have done without the Spanish language in the second ad, but otherwise think these are good.

Also, I think it is wrong to call the guy in the first ad a “hipster.” That term is a derogatory name, and it signifies more than just appearance. Is everyone with thick-rimmed glasses and a trendy haircut a hipster? No.

Also, I think it is wrong to call the guy in the first ad a “hipster.” That term is a derogatory name, and it signifies more than just appearance. Is everyone with thick-rimmed glasses and a trendy haircut a hipster? No.

I went to college with Scott. He’s good people. Started and runs his own business, writes for music publications, married, and generally a pretty good guy with a solid head on his shoulders. He can hold his own discussing the ideas and thought behind the sentiment.

But, that’s how you do it. You repeat it. You get the groan because what it means to be a Republican has been defined by the other guy — who’s put the blue suit up 10,000 times. You run this and run this and run this.

It’s exactly what the other guy did, and it works.

Axe on March 18, 2014 at 7:27 PM

Yup. I don’t know why, but people always assume that I’m a liberal and make comments about stereotypical Republican views or incorrect statements from Republicans in front of me. To which I respond and correct them, and say I’m a Republican. Best way to change views.

Every once and a while I can literally see their worldview shatter because I’m not wearing a white robe chanting about the Bible and gays while shooting my gun in the air. Kinda fun.

You should really watch the video on You Tube so you can read the comments and see the ratings.

It really irritated people and here is the top rated comment. It’s from a nasty liberal:

Caroleeena

Hahahahaha!!! This log cabin republican is terrible at reading his cue cards. He also doesn’t seem to understand that it is republicans who are hurting jobs. I guess they gave him one though because they clearly paid this sad sack gay man to say this. Hysterical.

Know what’s funny about all the pseudo tough guy posters here, they probably all had white-boy fros, and skinny doofus bell bottoms and spent parts of their youth dancing to disco.

Or they had feathered hair, parted down the middle (nothing is more feminine than men’s haircuts in the eighties)

Really who cares about looks. The people who do are the ones killing the GOP, and thus the conservative movement, and thus America.

There are two angles to the kiddie vote for the GOP, anti-establishment, pro-freedom. Really, that’s it.

The anti-establishment thing happens once in a generation – when Dems have full power, disillusionment is growing, and our side has the right marketing and message.

Pro-freedom cuts both ways. Kids really want to live their dreams and be able to build businesses and be free from government. They also want the libertarian and libertine versions of freedom of the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll variety.

The key is to tap into both of the aforementioned veins in the right way.

BINGO, direct hit… that up there is…. stuffy old losers who would rather die with a sinking ship need mot comment

As a self proclaimed “neo-con hipster” I will say this; the video had the right idea, but horrible execution. The guy is clearly reading a cue card, he talks with a lisp (not all hipsters have teh gay voice) and then he calls himself a republican.

Done, done and done.

If you want a decent hipster ad with conservative leaning ideas, at least make it of a quality that today’s hipster youth can appreciate. This ad was just poor all around.

And for the record, most young conservative hipsters want nothing to do with republicans or democrats. We hold our noses when we pull the lever.